


The Ballad of Charles Whitman (Apocalypse Remix)

by nwhepcat



Series: Bell Tower 'verse [1]
Category: Buffy/Angel - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-02
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 23:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can you live in a post-apocalyptic world of one? Not in the dazed sole survivor sense, crawling around the rubble like Burgess Meredith in that <i>Twilight Zone</i> ep. Like this: wandering around in yet another bright, sunny California day, discovering one by one the pieces of yourself that have been stripped away forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Revelations](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/28056) by liz_marcs. 



> Written for the 2006 Remix, source Lisbeth Marcs' "Revelations," which is not (yet??) archived here, but can be found here: http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/87887.html and http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/88118.html. It was one of my first favorite fanfics when I jumped into Buffy fandom, and I was thrilled to get to play in its world.

Prologue:

It _was_ the end of the world.

He just didn't realize it, not until later.

Everything was still standing when they came down from Kingman's Bluff. Except for the rubble of the Magic Box, Sunnydale looked the same.

Everything turned out all right. He'd somehow saved the day.

Saved -- single-handedly -- the world.

Except, what is the world but the life you know, your friends, your work, everything you think you know about who you are? When all those things are torn from you, laid to smoking ruin, isn't _that_ the end of the world?

Can you live in a post-apocalyptic world of one? Not in the dazed sole survivor sense, crawling around the rubble like Burgess Meredith in that _Twilight Zone_ ep. Like this: wandering around in yet another bright, sunny California day, discovering one by one the pieces of yourself that have been stripped away forever.

Sole casualty.

Apocalypse for one.

***

Xander wasn't sure where to take her. She needed someone with her, that much was certain. But he needed -- yeah, he needed something too. To find Anya, make sure she was all right. She'd seemed okay physically when she'd teleported to the cemetery to warn them about what was happening. But he hadn't seen her looking that shattered since --

Since the wedding.

He had to see her, but there was hardly a place on the planet Willow would be less welcome. He wasn't sure she'd get a much warmer welcome from Buffy or Dawn. And Giles -- when the hell had Giles arrived?

Willow needed someone to watch her. Not that he wished it didn't have to be him, but this, he thought, _this_ would be the time to find himself split into two Xanders.

He brushed her hair back from her face, thumbed the tears from her cheeks. "Will, can you travel? I’ll have to call a cab, I guess. We need to walk to a pickup point."

"God, Xander, your face --" Her eyes welled with fresh tears.

"I’m fine, honey. Your cat has nailed me worse. A little antiseptic cream, and everything's hunky-dory. You can walk?"

"Sure, yeah."

Xander reached for his cellphone, but it was trashed, burnt out by the wild streams of magic he'd absorbed. He snapped it shut before she could see. "Guess I fell on it. We'll find a pay phone down by the changing rooms."

She clutched him as they walked over the uneven ground, and he snugged his arm around her shoulders. His legs didn't feel any less pins-and-needly, but he was steady enough, except when Willow stumbled. Once they'd found a pay phone and he'd scrounged up the change to call, he asked her, "Where should we go?"

Her lip quivered. "I want my mom."

"All right, sweetie. Good thought." Mrs. R was in grief counseling, a happening subspecialty in Sunnydale. Not that he'd have nominated her for Most Involved Mother of 2002, but this -- plain old brokenheartedness with a distinctly red-haired cast -- this he suspected she could handle. Once the cab was on the way, he called Will's mom to make sure she was around.

"We heard about Tara on the news, Xander. We've been trying to call but no one's at the house."

"I know. It's been a little crazy. Paperwork and police reports and that. Cab's pulling up now. We'll be there in a few minutes."

He held her in the back of the taxi, crooning meaningless comfort. Guilt and doubt tickled at his mind -- _maybe he should stay with her; maybe she's not safe until he delivers her to Giles; maybe he's being selfish here._ But maybe what she needed was more of what he gave her: unconditional if still imperfect love. Some time to be a daughter in need of comfort, instead of the most powerful witch in the western hemisphere, near destroyer of worlds.

Mrs. R met the cab out at the curb, enfolding Willow in her arms, and he stopped doubting.

***

Xander headed for the Magic Box to look for Anya.

One of those _what's left of it_ propositions. Shattered glass everywhere, piles of plaster, fallen beams. Jesus, it was like a war zone. It was a war zone, of course. Funny how apocalyptic wars between good and evil could be microwars, not some huge Armageddon. "Anya?" He could hear his voice break with panic. If anything happened to her--

He groped his way to the counter, felt around for the flashlight Giles kept there ( _torch_ , he thought stupidly. _Giles calls it a torch_ ). " _Anya!_ "

"Xander? That you?"

Xander whirled, shining the flashlight at the intruder. Just the shopkeeper from next door, hovering in the doorway.

"Come out of there. It’s not safe."

"Is Anya all right, have you seen her?"

"She went in the ambulance. She's okay, she was going with Rupert. I didn’t know he was back."

"Is he all right?"

"Oh, I don't know. Seemed in kind of rough shape. This isn't stable, Xander. Let's get the hell out."

Best idea he'd heard all day.

He stumbled out onto the sidewalk, looked back over his shoulder at the rubble.

Holy shit. First the library, now the shop. The universe had a real hard-on for Scooby Gang meeting places, didn’t it?

***

Anya hurled herself into his arms when he presented himself at the hospital. “You did it, you stopped her,” she babbled.

_How did she know?_

"Where's Giles? Is he okay?"

"He's doing great considering he was dying a couple of hours ago. He's pretty beaten up, though." Releasing him, she looked him over. "She did that to you?"

"I kinda got caught in the crossfire, that's all."

"Magic crossfire? Xander, you could have--"

"Honey, I'm fine. Once I get cleaned up you'd never even guess."

"I don't know, Xander."

"Please. Just take me to Giles. Then I'm going home to crash."

A nurse tried to bar his way, but Anya ran interference. "Giles has been asking for him. He'll rest better if he just gets to see him a minute."

Finally the nurse relented, allowing Xander into Giles's room for a few moments.

He looked like shit. If Xander didn't know better, he'd have sworn Giles was fifteen years older than his true age. His eyes were closed, but his brow remained furrowed. "Is he in pain? Maybe he needs something for the pain."

Giles's eyes fluttered open. "Xander?"

"Yeah, it's me." He carefully took his hand, the one that didn't have an IV line running into it. Two of the fingers were slightly crooked, leftovers from Angelus' attentions four years ago. Xander could hardly believe it had been that long. "How are you, Giles?"

"A bit worse for wear. No matter. We're all safe. You did well, son."

He tried to savor that, but his anxiety wouldn't let him for long. "Will's at her parents' house. I didn’t know where else--"

"It's all right." Giles closed his eyes briefly, but didn't seem as though he'd drifted off. "It was a good decision." His eyes opened again, but Xander could see the effort it took to interact. "I want to hear about all this. After we've both had a chance to rest."

"Sure." He gently squeezed Giles's hand, realizing just how exhausted he was himself. When Dawn and Buffy arrived, it was almost like running a gauntlet to endure their hugs. "I'm heading home, guys."

"Breakfast at the Pancake House tomorrow?" Dawn looked so anxious for someone who'd just escaped an apocalypse.

"Sure. Sounds nice."

"Nine?"

"Make it ten."

By the time he fell into bed, the pins and needles feeling had spread from his legs to his torso. He told himself it was just the aftereffect of exhaustion and a long, too-hot shower.

He told himself the dreams were just the aftereffects of the day.

***

Xander remembers the next day, painful as it is now, because it was the last time they were all together (mostly), the last time he really belonged.

Not that things were normal.

Willow and Anya were both absent from breakfast, and the topic of conversation was primarily Giles and how he had completely lost his mind. He was right now in the process of checking himself out of the hospital, against medical advice. He'd had a discussion with the coven and they'd agreed he should accompany Willow to Devon.

"He's in no shape for a transatlantic flight," Buffy declared.

"I assure you," a voice said behind them, "I'm perfectly capable of sitting on a plane. Business class, of course." Giles leaned on a cane, but otherwise there was little sign that he was skipping out of the hospital.

Dawn slid farther into her side of the booth, and Giles lowered himself carefully onto the bench.

"Giles, I can’t believe you’re doing this."

"Buffy, much as I'd like to lounge about and partake of hospital food, this is a critical time for Willow. It's absolutely crucial that the coven work with her during this window of opportunity."

"They're propping you up, aren't they?" Buffy demanded. "The coven."

"What does it matter if they are? Once she’s under their care, I will be too."

"I've got to say, Buff, I agree completely. If you'd seen her--"

"I can't believe I have to remind you that I did see her. I nearly got my ass kicked by her." She was doing that thin line thing with her lips. Never a sign of goodness.

"This was something else. She stood up there on the bluff in the middle of a black whirlwind, sucking that temple right up out of the ground. Green bolts shooting off her fingers." _Photon torpedoes, Mr. Sulu. Fire._ He hoped to never feel anything like that again. "Everything human in her was gone. For a while I wasn't sure anything could bring it back."

"You brought her back," Giles said softly.

Xander opened his mouth to soften this pronouncement, say well, he was just lucky, but it hadn't been luck, and he couldn't bring himself to say so. "What I don't get is how everyone knew that before I even got back. Anya said -- hey, she didn't, like, pop out there, did she?"

"No," Giles said. "I'm the one. I was connected to Willow by the magic she took from me. I could see, could feel her."

"And since when do you have magic? You're upsetting my manly equilibrium here. I mean, I can take being the only one without any powers as long as your main powers are extensive knowledge of the Dewey decimal system. But now--"

"The coven allowed me to borrow their power."

"I borrowed Joey Marcarian's bike once, and it got stolen," Xander said, "so I feel your pain. I hope they don’t give you a swirly."

"I suspect I shouldn't ask. But no--"

The waitress stopped by their table, coffee pot at the ready. "Is he stayin'?"

"Yes,” Buffy said. "Could you bring him a mug?"

"No," Giles countered. "I should be on my way. Thank you, miss." As she moved on, looking vaguely put out, he turned his attention back to the others. "Xander, are you quite all right?"

His hand was at his chest, where Willow's magic had lashed him. For just a moment there, the cuts had burned, even worse than when he'd first been staggered by them. "I'm fine. Some scratches from my wild day yesterday. They got to stinging, is all. So the coven," he prompted.

"Oh, yes. They knew when they channeled their power into me that Willow would likely take it. As Anya said, they dosed her."

"Oh," Xander said softly. That probably shouldn't be disappointing news, but it was. It hadn't been him after all. An ache began in his chest, wholly different from the pain of a moment before.

Giles saw what was going through his head. "They merely opened a door, Xander. If you hadn't reached her, none of us would be here today." He smiled. "I think you can officially cease your worrying about having no powers. You did save the world."

"But the coven--"

"As Anya pointed out to me when things were looking rather grimmer, they also handed her the means to end it. It was a risk. It would have been a disaster if you hadn't been there." He placed a palm on the table and laboriously got to his feet. "Now children, I really must go. We’ll be leaving for the airport this afternoon at three o’clock."

"Can we come?" Dawn asked.

"You should let us drive you," Xander said. "If you're gone long, you could buy a new car with the money you'd spend on parking."

"I'd be delighted. And I believe Willow would be glad to think she'll be missed."

***

He was glad to come along, of course, but at the same time, it was heartbreaking.

Willow looked like an invalid, so fragile and small.

Dawn volunteered for the task of making painful smalltalk in the car. Not that her topic was devoid of interest. "How do you get back out of the country when you teleported in? I mean, doesn't that complicate everything?"

"Only if they notice," he replied, and that shut everyone up, raising the M-word, which nobody was talking about. Willow had not much to say at all, not until they reached the security checkpoint.

Brittle hugs with Buffy and Dawn, strained apologies and equally strained responses falling short of absolution. Xander pulled her into his arms before she could do that too-careful embrace with him.

"What you did for me -- how can I thank you?" she said.

"Hey," he murmured into her hair. "I was about to lose my best friend. Kind of a no-brainer that I step in, right?"

No-brainer. Sometimes now he wonders.

***

_Photon torpedoes, Mr. Sulu. Fire._

He watches those blasts of green energy pulse toward the temple. All he can think to do is step in front of them. His skin prickles, as if ants are crawling over every inch of him.

"You think you can stop this?" Willow sneers.

He thought she meant the end of the world. _Sign me on for that._

The dreams suggest maybe he's signed on for something else.

He wakes with his synapses on fire, as if Willow has blasted him again in his sleep.

***

Every night the dreams assailed him, relentless. Xander told no one. Who would he have told? Giles, maybe, but he was gone, off in the English countryside. At any rate, he had his hands full with Willow. Will herself needed to put her energies into recovering (and certainly didn't need a dose of guilt about being the trigger for these dreams). Buffy had had some kind of epiphany in that underground battle while he'd been on Kingman's Bluff. Money be damned, she was taking Dawn on a road trip to bond, to rediscover her joy in living. Xander wanted that for her, so much that it hurt (his own dose of guilt). He wouldn't lay this on her. And Dawn? No fucking way. She was still a kid, even after this complete bitch of a year, and he wouldn't expect her to take on his problems. That left Anya, and he'd given up the right to take his troubles to her when he left her at the altar.

Sometimes he found himself at Tara's grave. There was no stone yet, of course; there was grass only because they'd laid down sod as soon as they got her in the ground.

He brought flowers whenever he came, and a small stone when he remembered. That's what Willow would have done.

"Willow misses you," he's said more than once. "I know that. She's getting well."

What was he doing? Getting worse, that's what it felt like. But getting worse from what?

"I've been having dreams," he'd tell Tara. "About that day. Other dreams too." He'd imagine her soft eyes, the way her expressive face would mirror your sorrow and somehow lessen it. He missed her, and hated that he hadn't really appreciated her until she was gone.

Xander couldn't find words to describe the dreams, even to the still air of the cemetery. "They're bad," was as far as he'd get. He'd lapse into silence and sit with her.

Sometimes the pain in his chest would flare up. He'd look up, and there'd be someone walking on one of the paths, never looking toward him, just on the way somewhere. The lacerations on his chest, almost healed now, burned worse than the day Willow had opened them. After a time the pain would fade again. Xander would leave a pebble on the temporary marker, lay the flowers close by, and leave.

The last time he went, he told Tara, "I don’t know what to do."

***

Beheading works well on these things. That's what the dreams say.

But they look like people, and at first he thinks maybe this is the thing he's supposed to stop from happening. (Though why him? He's not a slayer, not a witch, not even a guy with an extensive knowledge of the Dewey decimal system.)

(Except the slayer is out of town, the witch and the librarian are out of the country.)

As the dreams progress, though, it gets clearer and clearer that these are not people.

(He is not a beheader. Damn skippy he’s not. He still feels sick whenever he watches a movie or TV show that reminds him of the feeling of jamming that sword right through Doc.)

"I don't know what to do," he says to the temporary marker, but he no longer has the feeling that Tara's there listening.

***

Postcards kept coming from Dawn and Buffy. They were doing the Kerouac thing he'd wanted to do that summer out of high school. He didn't begrudge them, not at all, but each postcard brought a pang. Homesickness for someplace he'd never been. San Diego, Tijuana, the Grand Canyon, Roswell, Austin.

 _Sunnydale this ain't_ , she'd written from Austin. This one she'd tucked inside an envelope. _There's a bell tower at the university where some guy took a bunch of guns sometime in the 1960s, and started picking off people down below. Half the people in the state with a deer rifle showed up to try to take him down. Can you imagine that in S'd?_

Not so much. Here people would go on about their day, bitching about the unusual weather. _Some hailstorm, huh? Never seen anything like it._ They had denial down to a science.

_Do I have any room to talk? If the dreams are right, there's a storm coming that's going to rain death. And what am I doing? Rummaging in the closet for an umbrella?_

Not even that.

***

"This isn't like you, Xander," his boss said. Dave had asked Xander to a breakfast meeting at the Pancake House. "That's why we're meeting away from the office and the jobsite. This isn't official. But you're not as sharp as usual. I'm getting concerned. We both know the kind of thing that can happen when you're not on your game."

"Absolutely," Xander responded. "I'd be having the same kind of talk if it was one of the men I supervise. I'm concerned too. I've had insomnia the last few weeks, and I know it's catching up to me."

"Personal issues?" Dave knew about Anya -- he'd been invited to the wedding, though he'd been out of town and missed the actual debacle. One tiny favor fate had granted Xander.

"No, it's not that. I haven't felt right since that accident at my place." He'd concocted a Sunnydale Special, one of those improbable tales that everyone here accepted without question. There'd been do-it-yourselfing and bad wiring and a shattered lamp.

Dave nodded, grateful not to be regaled with tales of girlfriend troubles or excessive drinking or religious doubts. "Something medical. Seen a doc yet?"

"No. I've been thinking this will pass, but maybe it's time I get it checked out."

"You do that. Take a couple of days off, get rested up. Bring a doctor's note in when you come back; I want to be sure you're ready. As long as everything goes all right when you come back, the whole thing will disappear."

"I appreciate that, Dave."

A waitress who wasn't theirs came around to refill their coffee cups, and pain seared his chest. Looking up abruptly, he recognized the waitress from the day Giles and Willow left, and it all clicked into place. _She's one. That's what this all means._

"You okay?" Dave asked.

"I'm good," he said, to both Dave and the waitress.

"Yeah," Dave said dubiously. Once the waitress cleared off, he added. "Get in to the doc today, wilya?"

He did as Dave said, but the doctor couldn't really say what was wrong. He just blamed stress and gave him a prescription that Xander threw away as soon as he made it home.

***

Xander took to walking around Sunnydale, looking at everything as if for the first time. Or maybe the last. This was his town, had been for his whole life. It seemed to hold him in some kind of magnetic field -- the honeymoon he'd meant to take with Anya never happened, the road trip stalled out in Oxnard along with the Crapmobile. Now he mapped its streets with his feet, aware of the coming storm.

He went into the stores he'd frequented his whole life -- the hardware store, the barber shop, the candy store near the high school, where the couple who owned it greeted him like a long lost family member. How grown up he is now, they told him. Where is he going to college? He told them he was still in the area, working in construction. "I'll be working on the new high school over the next few weeks," he said. The wife insisted he come by often while he's around. "How is your friend? With the red hair? I remember seeing you together since you were only this big."

"She's off studying in Britain right now," he told them. "I'm not sure when she's coming home. She's really thriving over there."

The pain in his chest flared and he invented an excuse to finish his purchase and leave. Turning, he brushed against another customer -- someone he knew he'd seen here dozens if not hundreds of times before -- and the sudden contact felt like someone jammed a red-hot brand against his chest.

He wandered into stores he'd never been inside during his lifetime in Sunnydale. The smoke shop, the lingerie store (he bought a camisole in Anya's size, just so no one thought he was a freak of one kind or another), the medical supplies store.

Everyplace he went now, it happened. Someone set off his -- what, alarm? _She's one. He's one._ They all looked completely human. Some of them he'd seen around town, talked to, gone to school with.

Sometimes he got overloaded and stayed in his apartment with the blinds drawn. Sometimes he went to a cheap matinee at the Sun. Mostly at the theater he was alone or close to it, though on senior citizens day there were enough people in the audience -- enough of Them, to be more accurate -- that escaping the warning pains required him to move to the front row, where the image onscreen was distorted and the sound was buzzy.

He needed to make this stop.

***

Xander let himself into Buffy's house to water the plants. The ivy thing was looking a little sickly, but he wasn't sure if he was watering it too much, or not enough. He hated this sort of responsibility. Little lives in his care that he doesn't really understand. What happens if he gets it wrong? Buffy and Dawn return home to a house full of dead things.

While he was there one night, he opened Buffy's weapons chest, gave some thought to what works best for beheading.

_No._

He quickly closed the lid, pinched a couple of dead leaves off the ivy, and left the house.

***

The tower thing keeps haunting him. He dreams about Jonathan in the bell tower at the high school. In the dream, half a dozen people from the neighborhood are crouched behind whatever cover they can find, taking potshots at him with high-powered rifles.

Xander stands in the courtyard by the fountain, blinking in the bright sunlight as bullets whiz around him.

_Some weather we're having, huh?_

Giles shouts his name and Xander turns to find him frantically waving him toward his own sheltered spot. "For god's sake, quickly, Xander!"

When he crouches beside Giles, the older man shoves a deer rifle into his hands. "Take him out," Giles says. "You're far better at this than I."

_What?_

***

He found himself at the computer one morning before work, googling _tower shooting_. There were a few misses, but it was surprising how many hits, after almost forty years. This had happened in a world Xander had never lived in, where a guy going to a public place and indiscriminately killing people was something unthinkable.

The first couple of articles gave him more to go on. A name. _Charles Joseph Whitman._ That dredged up a wealth of information. Articles. Analysis. Lyrics to three different songs. A _Time Magazine_ cover, which you could buy framed for $19.95. Ten quiz questions on a website called _Encyclopedia Fun Trivia_. Forty-six shot. Fourteen dead. Both fun and trivial.

Charles Whitman walked out into a world where no one would think twice about a man carting a heavy footlocker to an observation deck at the top of a tower. Even a man who'd mentioned in any number of conversations that a sniper could have a field day up in that very spot.

Different world now.

The civilians with their deer rifles couldn't try to stop him until he'd already brought down a lot of people. But Xander had a heads up -- on who, if only vaguely on what. It would be hellmouthy and apocalyptic and full of death, that much he knew.

That night he let himself into Buffy's house again, and this time he had weapons with him when he came out. He couldn't manage more than that. He left them in the trunk of his car while he sat in his darkened apartment, drinking too much.

***

Xander called Anya the next morning, invited her to breakfast at the Pancake House. He had to cajole; she was in the midst of filling out insurance forms and disaster relief forms, and she begrudged him the time. Especially when he passed up an unoccupied table to wait for another to be ready, one in the station of the waitress who set all the alarm bells ringing.

Anya had a pretty good demon detection instinct. He wondered if this woman would trigger anything in her.

Nothing registered with Anya. She spent the breakfast complaining about the forms, talking about money, instilling guilt that he hadn't given her any help with the demolition and cleanup. She was right about that last -- besides throwing her a few names of people he trusted, Xander hadn't really offered much help at all. He'd been caught up in his own concerns, and that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

The waitress returned to pour their coffee and tear their check off her pad, telling them it was almost time for her to go off shift, and it would make her life a lot simpler if they'd settle up the bill now. Xander reached for it before Anya could have reason to be bitter about that delay, too, and put down a ten to cover them both. Once the waitress had gone to wipe down a table for its next occupants, Xander asked, "Did you notice anything about her?"

"Why, are you looking to start dating again?"

Oh yeah. Still with the bitter. The woman in question was at least twice Xander's age.

"No. Just the opposite. Do you think there's something weird about her, something off?" His chest still burned from her proximity.

"She's in dire need of an eyebrow wax, and that's just for starters. Otherwise, no. What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I can't exactly put my finger on it. It's not important." This was his burden alone, then.

Figured.

***

Anya went back to deal with her many forms in need of filling out and workmen in need of berating, and Xander nursed his coffee, waiting for the waitress to finish up and head for home. He already knew she wouldn't be first on his list. Though she's the first of them, whatever it was they were, that he became aware of, he couldn't bring himself to make the first kill a woman. But he would follow her home and make a note of where she lived.

Maybe the first kill would make this easier.

While he waited, the guy at the counter wrapped up a couple of the day-old pastries for her, which she accepted without comment. The counterman didn't seem to expect one. It felt like a ritual of years. For how many of those years had she been the thing she was now?

Casually he rose and followed her. She clipped along the main drag, just a hint of something in her gait to suggest that her feet hurt. At the Espresso Pump, she darted in to retrieve a newspaper someone had abandoned at one of the tables by the door, then emerged without any of the baristas acting like anything unusual had occurred. The only time she slowed her pace was when she paused to look at the display in the dress shop window, the pricey boutique where Cordy had worked for her prom dress.

This was not what he wanted, to see remnants of the human, the little things that stirred his pity or made him wonder about her. The fact was, she _wasn't_ human anymore. The dreams and the warning pains that burned in his chest even now, these things told him what was real. Xander crossed the street and went into the smoke shop instead. There was always one or more hanging around there. None of them was going to get caught up in dreaming over a dress on his way home. He bought a couple of cigars, drawing the store owner into a drawn-out discussion before one of them came out of the humidor with a box of his chosen.

What was the appeal? Did they have a faint flavor of brimstone?

Xander followed him home to the kind of place a guy lived who could afford a box of hand-rolled Cubans. This would be his first. He'd wait until dark and make an appearance with Buffy's handy beheading tool.

How did those guys feel on that sweltering August day, rushing home to snatch up their deer rifles and mobilize themselves back to the UT campus?

Did they feel sick?

***

This comes as no surprise at all: Exterminating the first one doesn't make it the slightest bit easier.

Xander waits for it to explode into a puff of dust, melt into a puddle of green demon goo, vanish, desiccate, _something_ , anything that will make it look like something other than a human with his head lopped off.

He doesn't wait around for long.

***

It was front page news by morning, of course. _Grisly_ was one of those words that seemed wonderfully descriptive for a lot that went on in Sunnydale, except when it was applied to your own activities.

But what else could you call it?

He tossed the paper into the back seat of his car as he pulled up to the jobsite. The new school was pretty far along. The architect they'd hired had given it a whole different flavor from the old school, and that was fine with Xander. Hard enough being here without feeling stalked by all the same old demons.

_(You had to leave room for the new demons, didn't you?)_

The guys were all talking about it. They had two minutes before they could clock in, so they stood around the trailer finishing their coffee.

_Terrible thing._

_What kind of sick fuck?_

_Bastard didn't even steal anything._

_Bet it was drug related._

_What about you, Xander?_

"What?"

"Think it was drug dealers?"

"My money's on Satan worshippers," Tito said.

He was saved by the timeclock ticking to nine so they could all line up and clock in.

Was this his real job now? Stalking and killing? Maybe he should get himself a business card: _Xander Harris, Sick Fuck Drug Dealing Satan Worshipper._

The thing with the civilians who ran toward the Texas Tower with their deer rifles was, everyone knew what the threat was. In that case, the monster walking around in human skin had revealed himself by picking off the kids on the campus, the shoppers walking along the street, the cops who tried to intervene.

These monsters he was stalking would wear their human skin, hold to their daily routines, until it was time to shed them. By then, it'd be too late. Especially if this happened before Buffy came home, while Giles and Willow were half a world away.

***

Though he understood the urgency, it took a couple of days before he could bring himself to stalk again.

Though he didn't read the accounts of the actual murder, he couldn't stop himself from reading the sidebars that described the victim's life. He wondered if the others were on alert now, aware that one of their number had been taken down. Did they know one another at all? Did they even realize the truth about themselves, or were they like sleeper agents, living a life that had become a charade without their knowledge?

The dreams didn't tell him, and there was no Giles here to ask. There was probably some way he could find Giles and tell him what was going on, but it would require going through the Council, something Xander had no intention of doing. Again, it would pull his attention away from Willow, and she was the one who needed Giles right now.

He could do this. He had to do this. He'd picked off four zombies back in the day, saved the world on that hectic night and held onto that secret all these years. This would be harder because Sunnydale would actually miss this group, would consider them victims. This would be harder because they felt like victims to Xander, too, Their human forms made this crusade an abomination to him.

***  
He does what he has to.

He hates what he does.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you live in a post-apocalyptic world of one? Not in the dazed sole survivor sense, crawling around the rubble like Burgess Meredith in that _Twilight Zone_ ep. Like this: wandering around in yet another bright, sunny California day, discovering one by one the pieces of yourself that have been stripped away forever.

Xander found his next target as the 7 o'clock show at The Sun let out. He was with a woman, but the two of them gave off a friends-from-work kind of vibe. The guy asked if she'd like to grab a coffee at the Pump, but she said she had an appointment with the trainer at the gym early the next morning. "Next time," she promised, but it would be the last time she'd ever see her friend.

The third he followed from the Espresso Pump. He was alone, at least, working away on a laptop with several books spread on the table he occupied. It was a lot easier on Xander if they were alone when he picked them out.

He wasn't sure, though, if it should be easier.

Buffy called two days after that one. Just checking in, as she'd been doing about once a week. She and Dawn have been having a great time, she says. They're in New Orleans now, and Buffy told him, "The food here just makes your eyes roll back in your head, it's so amazing. I wish -- well, hey. Can you just take a long weekend and meet us out here? Dawn and I were talking about how you deserve a break from this year too."

"I'd love to," he told her. "But I just can't."

"Oh, c'mon, just four days."

"I can't. The job has kicked into overdrive. They can't spare me right now."

"I think I speak for both Dawn and myself when I say 'crappity.' Sometimes this whole responsible adulthood thing just sucks. Anything else new?"

"Not so much. Life's been pretty quiet. I work, I come home, I sleep. I don't even feel bad about missing out." He hated lying to her like this. Hated this whole thing. "Speaking of which, I'm pretty much toast. I'd love to talk longer, but I can't."

"We'll call again in a couple of days. Earlier next time."

"That'd be great." Another lie, but what's one more?

Xander left his apartment after he hung up, picked up the trail of another one at the Bronze. He had no idea how he managed to track each of his chosen targets without being noticed, how he could slip up and swing his weapon, cutting down his prey without giving the slightest indication. Each death was quick and merciful.

None of them had the slightest chance.

 _Was_ that mercy? To cut them down without giving them at least an instant of awareness before their lives were cut short? Time to murmur a prayer or say the name of someone they loved?

Well, that was just the thing. They weren't human anymore. They were infected. (This word has filtered from his dreams to his consciousness. By what or who, he still wasn't sure.) Their souls had already departed. No prayers, no love, no sense giving a romantic gloss to their deaths. All they'd do with that instant would be try to stop him.

This was the best way.

He took a fifth a few nights later. Tracked him from the bowling alley. This time Xander didn't stick close enough to hear his friends tell him goodnight. By the next morning the story had hit the national news. "A murderous rampage in a sleepy California town has local police baffled." It was almost amusing how boilerplate stories like this were. Police were always baffled. There were gruesome scenes, grisly details. Even the neighbors and coworkers interviewed with oozing sympathy said their parts as if a complete hack had written their dialogue. It became a game of Count the Cliches.

In a way, seeing it on the morning news almost made it less real.

Xander hated himself for feeling that way.

***

 _USA Today_ offered a nice little summary of the things he'd killed. What their roles had been. Stockbroker. Software code writer. Graduate student. Salesman at the bike store. Exterminator.

_Yeah, me too._

It was getting to be a dangerous occupation.

Xander stopped by the florist to pick up a potted ivy thing to swap out for the ivy thing that was possibly giving up the ghost at Buffy's house. As he put his wallet away, the warning pain struck him like acid splashed across his chest.

A man in dirt-smudged coveralls came out of the back, telling the shop owner he was leaving. They chatted a moment, _no, just a quiet evening, grab something for dinner, then watch the tube_ , and then he left.

Xander picked up his plant and followed. He'd hoped for a quiet evening, too. Same exact activities, plus plant duty at Buffy's. Lay low a little.

He knew better, though. There wasn't time for laying low. But the stakes were too high to get caught. _Careful_ was an extremely pale word for what he needed to be.

Luck? Fate? Something was with him, as it always seemed to be on these missions. He got in and out without being seen, creating a permanent disruption in Coverall Guy's plans, and a diversion of his own.

He grabbed a shower at his place, then set out for Buffy's, his appetite for food or television considerably dampened. He hit the brake a little abruptly when he saw Buffy's car in her drive.

_Shit. He's not finished with his work._

_Great. Now he can tell her what he knows, get the Scooby army mobilized again._

Both thoughts zinged through his head, but _shit!_ looked to be the clear winner. He took a few shaky breaths, then grabbed up the houseplant and got out of the car.

He used his key as he had been for these past few weeks, but he knocked on the door even as he swung it open. "Buffy? Dawn?"

Dawn hurtled into his arms. "Xander Xander Xander!" The rest was pretty much inarticulate happy noises, like the riot of high-pitched bird sounds on a spring morning. This reception made him so grateful, so suddenly aware of the terrible loneliness of these past weeks, that his knees grew rubbery.

"I didn't expect you this soon," he managed.

Buffy dashed down the stairs and engulfed him in a hug of her own. "God, Xander, don't you ever eat anymore?" She thrust herself back a step and looked him over. "Are you okay?"

"I'm good. Like I said, work is insanity."

She greeted this with a scowl. "Speaking of insanity, why the hell didn't you tell me what's been going on?"

His heart froze for a moment. "Uhhh--"

"These murders, Xander. Jesus. I'm on the phone with you not three days ago, and you didn't say a word. I had to find out in a 7-Eleven on the way to Memphis. We headed back as soon as I saw it. Why didn't you tell me this was happening?"

"Because you've never had a vacation from what you do, and it's high time you had one. Because this _isn't_ what you do. It's murder, strictly a police matter. There was no reason you should have to come back, that you should know."

Buffy snorted. " _Men._ "

"Men? What's that got to do with it?"

"You know. The classic Don't Worry Your Pretty Little Head Syndrome."

He gestured broadly, nearly thwacking Dawn with the houseplant he still carried. "That's not what I--"

"Xander," Buffy said, "why do you have a houseplant in your hand?"

"I was bringing it for you."

"The tradition is the housesitter _receives_ the gift, not the other way around. And you didn't even know we were back."

"I thought maybe I'd killed your ivy thing. I brought you another, just in case."

Dawn made a muffled noise and whirled off in the direction of the original plant.

"What?" Xander asked. Extra dread was not exactly what he needed right now.

"It'll be all right," Buffy assured him. " _Don't_ worry."

"Yeah, but what?"

Dawn dashed back in with the ivy, trailing brown and crispy leaves behind her. "Oh, Buffy. Can we rescue it?"

"I knew I was doing something wrong," Xander said. "But I couldn't tell if I was overwatering or under." He'd alternated between responses, probably making the situation worse every time he touched the damn thing. _Why was Dawn so distressed?_

"It'll be all right," Buffy said again. "We'll fix it."

"But why--" _Why is everyone on the verge of calling the paramedics?_ he wanted to ask, but he knew better.

Tears glittered in Dawn's eyes. "I'm sorry. It's stupid. But Mom babied this along from a cutting."

He suppressed a _dammit to hell_ , but barely. "This is exactly why I should never be entrusted with anything important." _Why hadn't they just told him? Jesus, he'd have taken it to the florist and paid her to keep the damn thing alive for the duration._

"Xander." Buffy's tone was firm, and so was her grasp on his arm. "Don't be silly. We'll cut it back, and it'll grow like a crazy thing. Even if it doesn't, it's not what matters."

Nice try, but too late.

He let her change the topic. "Do you have the newspapers since this started happening?"

"I've got today's, that's all." He'd read them -- still the human interest stories, not the crime accounts beyond the first paragraph that assured him the police were still baffled -- but he couldn't keep them. It would feel too much like the souvenirs of a serial killer.

He was a serial killer.

Six dead, to date, and he knew he wasn't finished.

***

The dreams ramp up, just to let him know he can't quit now, even with Buffy back.

For the first time, he sees their true forms. What they'll turn into.

He gets a sense of how many there are walking around in town, waiting for the Catalyst.

Christ.

The dreams tell him something else.

He's not required to kill them all.

There's a number that will tip the balance back to our side.

Not small, but not overwhelming.

One more kill and he will be more than halfway there.

***

Things moved forward.

The school reopened, Dawn started classes, Buffy started her job. Three more of those things died.

Buffy's dreams cranked up too. Girls all around the world, being hunted down and killed. Buffy felt the connection between them, that these girls were somehow in the Slayer line. Whatever was going on was so strong that Willow felt it in England, and made her way home.

He knew this, that Willow had returned, but by the time she came he'd had to drop out of sight. Buffy was a hell of a lot harder to baffle than the cops. Denial bought him some time, her very natural desire to stick close to the comfort of a longtime comrade. Not to mention the trust she had in him -- trust that he'd earned. It skated them past some questions, but not past the point where she took a close look at the contents of her weapons chest _(the chest he'd made for her, with his own hands)_ and realized the sort of weapons that were missing.

"Xander? Can you explain this to me?"

He didn't feel like he had much to thank God for (if there was one, which he couldn't say), but he was grateful that Dawn wasn't there for this.

"I haven't been in there since you left," he told her. "But you know how stuff gets scattered when we've got a big war on. Could be something got left at my place this spring. Giles's place would be likely too, if he'd been around past Thanksgiving. But we'd have noticed if stuff had been missing that long. Has to be my place. I'll check around."

"All right," she said, but she looked troubled.

"Listen, I'm beat. I'm going to head home. I'll take a quick look around, and call you either way." He kissed her on the temple, let herself out.

Xander called her half an hour later. "Hey, Buff. Good news. I found your stuff. Under my bed, which no doubt has all sorts of ungood feng shui connotations. I can bring it by tomorrow -- why don't we plan on dinner, you, me and the Dawnster?"

"Oh, I'm glad. Yeah, sure. I'll have to check with Dawn, but I'm good for dinner regardless. Thanks for searching, I know you're tired."

"Well, I know how you get when your implements of destruction aren't close by. See you tomorrow, Buffy." He thumbed off the phone and hoisted the duffel bag he'd hastily packed while supposedly conducting his search.

He took one last look around his apartment, and left the light burning as he let himself out.

By the time Buffy followed her instinct and stopped by to talk things out with him, Xander was two hours gone.

***

He stayed in Sunnydale, but kept on the move, not spending more than a couple of nights in one place. Hanging out with Buffy meant he knew a lot of places to hide, knew Sunnydale's sewers as well as he did its streets. Unfortunately, Buffy knew them too. What he didn't understand was how he managed to stay one step ahead of her. It felt like he was gliding on instinct, but how could his prove sharper than hers?

It bothered him, but he trusted it. When his scalp prickled, he took it as seriously as he did the burning in his chest, and moved on.

Going underground made it infinitely more difficult to pursue his mission, but he found the little opportunities, the moments that created a space for him to slip into, to do the thing that was required of him and be gone before Buffy discovered the human-seeming body that he left behind.

Ten.

Eleven.

A dozen.

He felt her obsession with finding him, sensed her rage at his betrayal. Implacable. _I feel like that guy in that book_ , he'd say, if he had anyone left that he could tell. _You know, that French novel. With the guy and the cop and the chasing._ The Cliff's Notes had actually been fairly compelling.

What he didn't get was why there were no cops now. As far as he could tell, they were as baffled as before. His supervisor must've still believed the family emergency story, and hadn't gone to them. And Buffy -- she'd apparently taken this as her own personal crusade. He had been her friend; now it was up to her to take him down.

Before that happened, he had one more campaign in his own crusade.

***

Giles shows up, several girls in tow. More girls come on their own. Some make it, some are cut down when they've almost reached safety. It pains Xander that he's not there to help, that he's drawing Buffy's attention away from what's coming.

But he is contributing to this fight. He knows that even if the others don't.

The Catalyst is coming, and once he's here, the moment will be lost.

***

Hard as it was to stalk now, he found his thirteenth. The one that would tip the scale, shift the odds back to the world winning another round.

The woman from the Pancake House.

Xander hated this, wanted to choose another. He'd managed this without taking the life of any women. Though he knew the distinction didn't make any sense -- they weren't human, a female shell made no difference -- he still balked at this. But every moment he hesitated exposed him to capture, endangered the mission. He had a chance to stop this storm, make it pass over Sunnydale without visiting death on innocent people. He could not lose the way now.

He cut her down the way he'd cut down the others.

He stood for a moment too long, watching the life leave her body. He escaped by the slimmest margin. This time he fled Sunnydale altogether, hauling the tarp off the beater he'd bought some weeks ago and driving it to L.A.

***

He disappeared completely for a few days. Ditched the car, bought another, used a variety of false IDs that he'd collected over the summer. He tried to lose himself in the anonymity of the city. At first he holed up in his hotel room, trying to encompass in his head the things he'd done. There was alcohol involved in this at one stage, and something like prayer at another, but neither had much effect. Then he changed tactics and went out into the world, to tourist spots and flea markets. He could walk among people again without them setting off any physical alarms, and the relief was bittersweet, almost overwhelming.

Xander wasted a few days in pointless reaction, then found himself compelled again to follow some instinct, driving the streets in the bright California sunshine until he came on an old hotel in an unglamorous part of town.

He wasn't much surprised at what he found when he walked into the lobby. Except for Faith. This was new. Last he'd known, she was in prison, and he'd felt a little less nervous in general, knowing she was there.

She was hanging in the lobby with Angel and Faith's old watcher Wes (now there was an odd couple, but both Buffy and Willow had told him ages ago they'd set up shop as private investigators), and several others he didn't know. A young black guy with a shaved head, a girl with long brown hair, a surly teenaged boy. Oh yeah, and a guy who made Xander's eyeballs throb with his loud suit, but that was nothing compared to his skin, which was green, not in a figurative _gosh, you look unwell_ sense, but _green_ , except for the horns poking out of his forehead.

When he walked in, he was struck with a strange sense of familiarity, not with the place or most of the people, but the vibe. Post-apocalyptic, with overlapping chatter and laughter, almost manic and a little shaky. It was weird to see this vibe and not share in it. Weird to think there might be apocalypses he knew nothing about. And to know he'd fended off his own apocalypse, and they knew nothing about it.

The vibe was snuffed the moment they caught sight of him. He might not have known everyone in the room, but they all seemed damn familiar with him. A wariness swept over everyone. A twitchiness. Wes seemed to edge nearer a cabinet filled with the type of weapons Xander had been wielding a lot lately.

Xander carefully kept his hands in sight. "I see my reputation has preceded me."

***

"I came to get Faith." And although he hadn't known she was even here until he walked into the Hyperion lobby, he knew it was true. Whatever had been guiding him all along had brought him here for her. "We need to get back to Sunnydale and stop the hellmouth from opening."

The bombardment of questions felt almost like a physical assault.

He tried to come up with answers in some order that made any kind of sense. But sense was the one thing that seemed to be missing from this whole fucking thing. "Anyone here ever heard of Charles Whitman?" was all he came up with to say.

Angel was the only one to say yes, but he seemed to understand the stumbling explanation that came after. He managed to frame a series of questions that drew the story from Xander in a coherent way, and the others settled back to let him work.

There was a long pause after the whole story came out. "I believe you," Angel finally said. "I'd like you to do one thing to confirm my hunch, if you would."

Xander was so grateful to have someone who knew everything he did, who didn't believe him a complete monster, that he nodded. "Whatever you need."

The last thing he expected was Angel's request. "I'd like you to sing. Lorne here is empathic, he can sense things about people, but only when they sing."

"Lorne?"

"Christ, I haven't even made introductions, have I? Sorry, we've had kind of a barbaric few days."

Barbaric. Well, no wonder he fit in.

"Xander, this is Fred. Winifred Burkle. Resident quantum physics girl, among other things." He gestured to the green guy. "Lorne here has given us a lot of guidance over the years."

"He's--"

"A demon, yeah," Angel said. "One thing I've learned in L.A., you can't make snap judgments. Some of the best people I've known haven't been people."

The surly kid gave a little lip curl to this pronouncement, which made Xander want to give the demon a chance, just because the kid annoyed him.

The black guy was Gunn, the surly kid was Connor. "And you remember Wes."

"Sure. Glad to meet you -- or see you again." Xander cast a quick glance at Faith to let her know she was included. "Thanks, um ..." Something squeezed his chest -- not a warning signal, just pure, overwhelming emotion. "Thanks for not killing me."

That had been the most shocking thing in all this. Angel telling him, in the course of drawing his story out, that Buffy had warned them Xander was at large. That she'd said to catch him. Hold him if they could. Kill him if they had to.

This was what six years of friendship and trust had amounted to. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Could anything -- even singing in front of a group of people he barely knew (and a couple he knew too well) -- be worse than that?

***

He didn't, it turned out, have to sing in front of the others, just the green demon. Lorne suggested they go out into the sunlit courtyard, lush and overgrown, kind of a genteel ruin, and Xander felt himself settle a little. He had a feel for places, and this was a good place.

Lorne sat on a stone bench. "Whenever you're ready," he said quietly.

"I always go blank," Xander said apologetically.

"I hear that a lot. No rush."

But there was a rush. There was always a big rush because the world was always going to -- Xander cleared his throat, hoping he would be in the right key. That he'd be in any key music could be formulated in. The song was so old he was surprised he knew any of the lyrics at all, but they seemed to come to him by instinct:

_Why does the sun go on shining?_  
Why does the sea rush to shore?  
Don't they know it's the end of the world  
Cause you don't love me anymore? 

Lorne invoked the Geneva Convention. Which wasn't exactly how he put it, but he did gently cut Xander off early in the song. "I have enough now."

Xander shifted on his feet, waiting.

"Let's start with the good news. You've done terrible things. You don't need me telling you that, you feel it, and there's nothing wrong with your instincts."

"This is the good news?"

"It was kind of buried, but I'd just gotten there. To repeat: There's nothing wrong with your instincts. However terrible those things were, they were necessary. They were the right thing. Those thirteen are going to buy the lives of an awful lot of people. Each time you got it right, even though these things passed brilliantly -- well, you should know all about that."

Xander wondered how much of what Lorne said was supposed to make sense, and how much he was supposed to filter out. "There must bad news, if we're starting with the good."

"Your type always wants to get right to that." Lorne shrugged. "Guess that's part of the calling. Well, all right. As you know, the Catalyst is coming. He's an unpleasant little shit, if I may speak inelegantly. Steer clear of him. I've always had a theory about people who only dress in black and white, and what that says about their worldview. This guy is a prime--"

"Lorne?"

"It's all 'cut to the chase' with you people now. Didn't used to be the case back in your glory days. Your type was in love with the cryptic. So right. Here it comes: Another apocalypse is headed down the pike. You've already made a big dent in their gameplan, but there's still a battle to be fought, and it's going to be a tough one. You have a part to play there and beyond, so don't get sidetracked with grief and second-guessing."

Xander took a step back. "Grief? Who--?"

"I can't say. You need to keep your head clear and in the now, cupcake. Just know that if your instincts don't guide you, that's as significant as when they do. You're just an instrument of Fate, more than the average Joe."

_But I am the average Joe. That's just it._

"There's life beyond the point where you think your life is over. And it'll be sweet, if you stay open to it. The instincts can work for you too."

"I'm not sure I get you. You're saying there's an afterlife?"

Lorne waved a hand. "Afterlife, schmafterlife. Why don't we just take one life at a time?"

Xander waited for more, but Lorne kept his silence. The audience, apparently, was over. "Well, thanks. I'm not sure what to make of all of it, but --"

"You'll know when the time comes. And you're welcome." Lorne rose, shook the creases out of his cobalt blue trousers. "After all, we intuitive demons have to stick together."

"What?"

Lorne looked up sharply at something in Xander's voice, shock written on his face. "Don't tell me you--"

Xander stepped back, shaking his head. "No."

"No one's ever--"

He kept backing up. "I don't know what this is, or what you are--"

"I misread you. I thought you knew. Have a seat, Xander. We've got some more ground to cover."

"No. No more ground." He wheeled and strode for the safety of the lobby. The brown-haired girl was closest at hand. Jack? No, Fred. Xander asked her if there was a room where he could crash for a few hours before the drive back.

***  



	3. The Ballad of Charles Whitman (Apocalypse Remix)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you live in a post-apocalyptic world of one? Not in the dazed sole survivor sense, crawling around the rubble like Burgess Meredith in that _Twilight Zone_ ep. Like this: wandering around in yet another bright, sunny California day, discovering one by one the pieces of yourself that have been stripped away forever.

This is craziness.

Xander responds to Faith's attempts at conversation _(at prying into Lorne's comments)_ with monosyllables, if that. There are so many words in his head that they've created one big logjam. Nothing will ever get out.

_We intuitive demons--_

That's just insanity.

_I misread you._

Damn skippy you did. He can't even say now how much, if any, of it was true. At least Lorne convinced the others Xander was no threat, that he needed to get back to Sunnydale ASAP.

_Your type. You people. Your type._

And then there was Angel. Before Xander left, Angel pulled him aside and --

_This is how Xander knows he's gone crazy --_

He invited him to come back, when this apocalypse is through.

Offered him a job.

_Your type._

My type, goddammit, is the average Joe.

Lorne is just like -- he remembers Larry, after he came out, the conversations he'd overhear in the lunchroom or study hall. Every actor in Hollywood was secretly gay, to hear Larry tell it in the absolute voice of authority. Lorne's just like that. Everyone's a demon, really, some just haven't come out of the closet.

"Xander?" Faith says. " _Xander._ "

"Yeah, what?"

"I'd be happy to drive for a while."

"No, I'm good."

"No you're not."

"What?"

"You're scarin' the piss out of me."

He's certain these are words that have never before passed her lips. He eases the pressure on the gas pedal. "Sure. As soon as I find a place to pull off a minute."

After they've switched places, Faith glances over at him. "You scared?"

He looks away, doesn't answer.

***

So much for six years of friendship and trust.

So much for the fact that he walked right up onto Buffy's porch of his own free will.

_(When was the last time he'd actually knocked on her door?)_

He'd barely gotten in the house and said, "We really have to talk. Something's coming, and it's bad," when Buffy clipped him and the next thing he knew, the hardwood floor was rushing up to greet him.

The _next_ next thing he knew, he was coming to in the basement, in chains. Funny. This seemed familiar. Was she going to send a demon down here to do her dirty work, or come down and do it herself this time?

_We demons have to stick together._

That was bullshit. Angel trusted a demon to give him guidance, as he'd said himself, and this was what you could expect.

_You can't make snap judgments. Some of the best people I've known haven't been people._

Words of wisdom from a vampire.

Xander's head throbbed, and the manacles bit into his wrists. She was that afraid of him?

Voices rose and fell above him, floorboards creaking with the pacing of whoever was speaking. Buffy's so shrill, barely in control. He knew what she had to be thinking: _How could we all have missed this?_ In her mind, he was the sniper in the tower, the man who'd crossed over into the unthinkable. _What didn't we see? Why?_

He drew his knees up close to his chest, tipped his head back against the wall. After a while, he heard the soft click of the basement door, the creak of four wooden stairs, then a pause before the quiet groan of a step as someone sat down.

As if thirty pounds of chains wasn't enough, he was under guard now.

He didn't bother opening his eyes.

After a long pause, whoever it was _(heavy boots and a spicy perfume, his money's on Faith)_ rose and approached him, crouched down to regard him.

He kept his breathing even, his eyes closed. They could do what they wanted to him. Nothing was worse than what they'd already done. Treated him as inhuman, made him into a thing.

_We demons--_

A hand touched his, and his eyes flew open with shock.

He was not being wrenched to his feet, not being punched into submission. Faith _(he'd been right)_ had gently placed her hand on his, offered simple human comfort.

His eyes met hers, and he saw knowledge and understanding there. Not the pity he'd seen flash in Lorne's blood-red eyes. This was what he'd come to, that a murderer was the one who could understand him best. At this point, he'd take what he could get.

She slipped her hand inside one of his, interlacing her fingers with his. Surprising herself as much as him, he believed. _It's just skin_ , he remembered her saying. Was she also thinking of that?

Maybe it was meaningless, but he'd take this, too.

He tipped his head back again, closed his eyes, and breathed.

***

Xander's hauled upstairs for the tribunal. Buffy's removed the chains, grudgingly, but left the manacles at his wrists.

He steps into the room, hovering at the doorway. The girls of the Slayer line, who witnessed his reappearance and saw him subdued, have cleared off. So, apparently, have Anya and Spike. It's this small group that will pass judgment: Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Giles and Faith.

There's a moment of high tension between Buffy and Giles as he insists she remove the manacles. Xander rubs at his wrists, stays where he is. Standing, while the others sit. Isn't this how the accused takes the stand in England? He's seen old movies and TV shows, and he's sure he remembers this.

Giles clears his throat to begin. "We are not going to kill you."

Xander can think of nothing to say, and merely nods.

"We also know that you're still you, Xander," Giles continues.

The relief that sweeps through him makes his knees wobbly. Lorne was wrong, or lying, it doesn't matter now. Giles has confirmed what he needed to know:

Xander is not a demon.

Well. That's what he thinks for a few hopeful moments. But then Giles brings it all crashing down on him.

***

Giles extracted his information first. That was always what he'd been best at, wasn't it? He was Information Guy. He got the whole story, the dreams, the infection, the Catalyst. What he'd done and why. Nothing, of course, about what Lorne had told him.

_We demons have to stick together._

Giles drilled for the intel he needed, heedless of what it cost Xander. Finally, he sat back, seemingly satisfied. "Thank you, Xander," he said softly.

Well, that was something, at least.

His head ached and he realized he hadn't eaten anything in a very long time. "Can I go?"

Giles finished cleaning his glasses and put them back on. "We're not done yet. We need to talk about you."

Xander waited for the other shoe to drop. They'd have to take him to the police, or send him to the coven for the psychic detailing _(how'd that work out for you, Will?)_ , something. Though he'd braced himself for the bad, he wasn't prepared for what Giles said next.

_You're a demon._

He shook his head, feeling like he'd time warped right back to that overgrown garden in L.A. "You're wrong, Giles. Tell me you're wrong." His voice barely over a whisper.

"I'm sorry. I'm not." Not quite steel in his voice, but something that brooked no argument.

_We demons--_

"I don't believe you," he said, louder this time. To Giles. To Lorne.

Giles gave him a name then. Giles loved classifications. What's the word? Taxonomy? Genus and subgenus. That stuff gave him wood.

_Pythia._

Much to his shock, this name already meant something to Willow. She made the connection for him -- the Oracle at Delphi, one of the mythical things that even Xander managed to recognize. Though all he knew was it told people stuff about what would happen. Sum total of his knowledge. Oh yeah -- it was at Delphi. That too.

_Back in your glory days. Your type was in love with the cryptic._

There was more blah-blah about how this could possibly be, that a race of demons that had died out were alive and well and raising kids in Sunnydale and drinking too much and not facing up to what and who they were.

_We intuitive demons--_

His parents.

They'd mingled with humans over centuries, Giles said. His parents were human. Xander was human. _Was_ , in his case. Giles told him that everything human in him had been burned away.

And when had that happened?

_Photon torpedoes, Mr. Sulu. Fire._

Xander saw the truth of this in the tears tracking down Willow's face. That whatever had happened -- and Xander still resisted the thought -- had happened on Kingman's Bluff.

He fought this idea, but Giles battered at him with a dozen examples of times Xander had supposedly known things he never should have known, times when a word or action on his part had changed events. "Coincidence," Xander sputtered, but each time he protested, Giles fired back with another instance.

Until finally, Xander had no fight left.

_We demons._

As if that wasn't bad enough, there were realizations to follow. That Giles had arranged things so Xander would be there on the Bluff to stop Willow from ending the world. That he already knew by then what Xander was, and knew there was potential for something like what happened.

Giles knew -- had been certain since the enjoining spell, over two fucking years ago -- and had never told Xander.

He knew, and sent him into the line of fire _(photon torpedoes)_ \-- not by direct order, but he knew his faithful soldier, didn't he? No warning of what he might face before he'd marched off. No time then, Xander got that. But he'd never had any word after that, no hint of what longterm effects there might be.

He was a good general, Giles. A Council man through and through.

Xander smiled. He was certain it was not a very nice smile. "I remember when we were about to have the big showdown with Glory, after she'd snatched Dawn. Remember your big plan? The only way, you said."

"Xander." Buffy's tone carried both a warning and a plea.

"I think it's time she knew. Everyone needs to know this, or remember it. Because we shouldn't forget who we're fighting alongside."

"Don't," Buffy said.

"What?" Dawn asked.

Xander turned to her. "I should give you the option Giles never gave me. This won't be something you can unhear, once I've told you. It changes everything."

"Then don't," Buffy said.

"I want to know."

Some small part of him hated himself for playing on her dislike of feeling out of the loop. Like Giles, he knew just how to play people, didn't he? "You know how it worked, being the Key. Once the portal opened, it stayed open until the blood stopped flowing, and you were dead." The look on her face told him to stop now, give up this senseless cruelty. But the target wasn't Dawn, it was Giles. Xander wanted to poison her feelings for him, wanted someone else to know the betrayal he was suffering now. "Giles wanted to kill you. Preferably before the ritual could begin, but soon after it, if we couldn't stop it altogether. He and Buffy got into a shouting match about it, right in the middle of the Magic Box. I thought maybe it was because on this intellectual level, he felt you weren't real. He loved you, he _said_ that, but he knew you really weren't part of Buffy's family." Dawn's chin trembled with the effort not to cry, and Xander ached for her. He really did. "But tonight has showed me something. Giles is a true Council man. There's nobody he won't sacrifice, won't destroy without a thought, if he believes it will serve his ends. Never forget that. I did, and you can see what it cost me."

Xander looked around the room, taking a perverse satisfaction in the shocked faces around him. He let his gaze linger on Giles, the grief and defeat on his face. "I am not the only monster in this room," Xander said softly.

"No," Giles murmured. "You aren't."

Xander spun on his heel and left the house.

***

This was the proof that he had no soul. That he could do that to Dawn, who'd never done anything but loved him like a big, goofy brother.

He hadn't even done it to hurt Dawn, but to get at Giles. Poison her against him, any others he could.

Didn't that make him as bad as Giles?

Xander stumbled along the sidewalks, making his way toward the beach. He slipped and slid through the sand in his street shoes until he stopped to yank them off, dropping them in the dark and walking on. At last he came upon on a fire ring above the high tide line, and he sat on a large piece of driftwood, staring out to sea.

How could he become a demon and not know? How could he lose his humanity, his soul, and blithely go on, unaware?

Jesse knew the difference. He felt great without his soul, he'd told Xander. Free and unstoppable. Xander had seen the difference in him. Not just the humanity had dropped away, but the self-consciousness, the awkwardness, all the shit that haunted the teenaged dork that he'd been, all burned away. Purified.

To hear Jesse tell it, anyway.

Why hadn't he missed his own? Or at least felt freed from it? If there'd been Pythia in him all along, maybe he'd never had one.

He thought about shedding the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a trail down to the water's edge. Thought about letting himself be taken by the undertow.

_There's life beyond the point where you think your life is over. And it'll be sweet, if you stay open to it._

Was this the time Lorne was talking about? Or could something worse be coming down the pike?

_It'll be sweet, if you stay open to it._

Were Lorne's instincts about this as good as the ones that told him Xander was a demon?

Angel trusted him, didn't he?

He might not have to worry about the life Lorne spoke of. He sensed Buffy struggling up the rise toward him, coming to a stop close enough to touch him. Well, no. She couldn't let him roam around town free, knowing what she knew.

He wanted her to know something, before whatever came next. "What I said to Dawn. That was unforgivable."

"No it wasn't," she said, which was not at all what he expected to hear her say.

"It isn't your place to say, though, is it?"

"It's Dawn's. But she's already forgiven you. When I grabbed my jacket, Dawn said, 'Find him. He's so hurt.'"

This was a good thing to hear before he died, if that's what was coming. Xander shoved down the emotions that rose in his chest, scoffing. "I can't hurt. I don't have a soul anymore. Elvis has left the building."

"I might believe that, if I was completely blind."

"So you found me. What's next?"

Her feet shifted in the sand. "You're supposed to be Oracle Guy. I was hoping you'd tell me."

He couldn't believe he had to lay this out for her. "You're the Slayer, I'm a demon."

"I don't get you."

"It means that I pretty much fall under your jurisdiction." She'd already said it, back at the house. He was a thing, not a person. "You know, the one that falls just outside human law? I guess that means you're my judge, jury, and if necessary, my executioner."

What he did not expect was to have her fall on her knees beside him, expressing her grief and anger at what had happened to him. He was supposed to be different. Different as in different from her other friends. Normal.

Marriage, house, 2.5 kids, minivan, the whole works. She'd had all this worked out for him, and it threw her that he'd ruined her plans. Fucked up her vicarious life.

Though really, anyone who picked him to live their vicarious life really had a lot more problems than he could deal with. "Sorry to disappoint," he said.

Buffy kept on with this. The vicarious life, that's the heart of it all. "I think it explains why I was so angry when, you know..."

"I murdered people?"

"They weren't people. Not anymore. You heard what Giles said about the autopsies."

He hadn't needed to hear what Giles said. He'd had his own internal warning system.

She kept talking, trying to make him feel better, to make herself less unhappy. This was going to crack him wide open. When Buffy made a move to touch his shoulder, he couldn't stop himself from flinching.

"Nothing personal," he said. "I just can't stand to be touched right now."

It was a rocky moment, but she endured it to sit with him. They agreed to sit in silence for a while, breathing in and out to the rhythm of the waves. He wished he could dissolve into them, let go of the memory of the humanity that he'd already lost.

The thought was seductive, but again he remembered Lorne's words. There is a life beyond this point.

He wasn't sure he even wanted to believe that.

But what if Lorne was like him? _(We intuitive demons)_ Not just a reporter of events that haven't occurred yet, but someone charged with affecting the outcome. A participant.

Would he deny Lorne's vision, and trash his own?

That's when the last of his soul would be lost, when he denied the purpose of his sacrifice.

He was just sitting with this sea change in himself, taking it in, when Buffy said, "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."

This was something human he could share with her, and he was absurdly grateful to her. "Yeah, starving."

Together they rose and made their way back to her house.

***

He's graduated from the basement to Buffy's room, but his sleep is restless. He thrashes, caught in a dream.

_The Catalyst is near._

His chest burns, and he fears he'll be swallowed up.

A spicy scent wafts near him, the warmth of another body. A feathery light touch on his chest sets him shivering.

A hand moves into his then.

Warm. Pliant. The touch of something human.

Xander sinks into a deep and dreamless sleep.


End file.
